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CHEST XRAY IS

T.B. RECONNAISSANCE!

FIT TO ENJOY HIS HOME

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To sharpen one aspect of this problem the author has asked several college classes to prepare a couplet of posters-one to promote some aspect of health in the present war period and another to promote the same aspect of health 5 or 10 years hence when the world is at peace. The posters proved most revealing. With few exceptions a common motif prevailed.

Posters for the war period carried pictures of battle scenes, men in uniform, tanks, pilots, flags, paratroopers, and other symbols of

In a discussion of their answers it will be interesting to consider the following:

Do they tell the truth? Do they arouse feelings that would encourage the right actions and stop the wrong ones? Is there any danger of causing unnecessary inhibitions in an emergency such as "freezing" to the spot in the face of a traffic accident or becoming hypochondriac or overly sensitive about health?

WHEN THE END IS NOT IN SIGHT

Distance is relative. The road may be long,
the atmosphere beclouded, or the traveler nearsighted

An act that leads to the preservation of the individual or species is desirable. One that weakens or destroys is undesirable. When the result follows the act promptly and with dramatic force, the job of education is simple. Thus the dangers in a sharp knife, in cyanide poisoning, in jumping from a third-story window, or in botulism are quickly learned. The results are so sure, come so quickly, and are the same for everyone.

But let us imagine that it were possible to jump and float through space for 20 or 30 years, that the eventual landing would be easy for some, destructive for others, and that the sensation of floating was in itself very pleasant. How many people would jump? How effective would be the ordinary warning? What could be done to prevent people from jumping?

The success of education is ofttimes jeopardized by the pleasantness of "floating" and the distance between cause and effect. Why study arithmetic in order to be a successful engineer 20 years hence, especially since there are more pleasant things to do and maybe you'll never be an engineer? Why learn not to say "ain't" to avoid the embarrassment of being an uncultured adult a decade later? To the youth with large reserves of health, the slow-coming dire effects of a vitamin-deficient diet seem unreal. The 37 percent chance of dying prematurely because of smoking is hardly a deterrent to one who wants to appear grown-up and to whom the fiftieth birthday seems a long way off. Even tomorrow's sunburn pains following long pleasant hours at the beach are hard to think of at the beach. Yet man must profit from the experience of others if he would progress. When science has established the cause

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effect relationship between a course of conduct and undesirable consequence, be these separated by minutes, hours, weeks, or years, it becomes the responsibility of education to see to it that the behavior of persons is such that the individual or species be spared the unhappy consequence. To accomplish this many methods have been employed. Their success depends on how much feeling can be brought into the present situation and associated with the causal behavior.

It is generally assumed that the promise of a satisfying reward or the threat of painful punishment to come will move people. This is one of the commonest errors made by parents and teachers. We are not moved today by the feelings we will experience tomorrow. The bliss of healthy motherhood is a potent factor in her mother's life, but means very little to 15-year-old Janie who today must solve the problem of late hours on an adolescent level. The threat of whooping cough with its most dreaded after effects excites health departments to action, but does not move 6-year-old Bobby who fears shots and recalls no pains of serious illness. Even the threat of death has no sting for youngsters who have never lost loved ones, either human or animal, in this manner. Each generation must "learn by its own mistakes" until educators learn to connect the feelings that will accompany the consequence on the morrow with the act of today that is responsible for this consequence. Failing in this, they must utilize other feelings to motivate today's acts.

When a pet dog is overrun by an automobile the unfortunate experience may add to the safety of his little mourning friends and master if parents are alert to utilize the situation wisely. This first experience of the pain of death may thereafter serve as firepower in the formation of attitudes relative to street crossing.

The vitamin story becomes vivid, when pet rats or guinea pigs are made sick temporarily on defective diets. Children do the feeding, weighing, and observing. The pets are well liked and their illness arouses strong feelings in children. The transfer from pet to self is usually not difficult.

Eating is not always all to the good. Mothers get pleasure from feeding their young; and the young enjoy eating. Mother and daughter need to be reminded that "bigness" is not all. The act that pleases mother today may cause the young lady of tomorrow the pains of ridicule and lonesome adolescence that plague the fat sophomore. But adolescent joys and pains seem unreal to a hungry 9-year-old and, at best, a faint memory to her energetic mother who grew up "the hard way." Still something must be done.

strength, honor, patriotism, and all-out devotion to high causes. In each case the wording or the picture itself proposed a course of action favorable to health and to the attainment of the big feeling and noble end so dear to every American. This is illustrated in the upper picture of each of the couplet posters reproduced in this section.

The posters for the peace were, with few exceptions, devoid of such power to move people. Here were used our old standard appeals to beauty of body form, to poise, power, charm, and other self-centered

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STEADY NERVES
today!

feelings. Two of the couplets selected illustrate this weakness of our peacetime appeal. In the food poster created by Miss S, dumbbell pushing and the "look what a big boy am I" feeling replaces the jungle marine model of manhood. In the exercise poster designed by Mr. R, the joys and poise of mallet waving are offered to move men in the peace as waving flags and charging cavalry did in wartime. Do dumbbell pushing and mallet swinging "pack the wallop" needed to move boy or man to eat and exercise adequately?

The T.B. poster designed for use in a Chicago Settlement House by Mr. L. seems to have found a happier solution for the peace. Fit to enjoy his home would seem to arouse, on behalf of the chest X-raying program, feelings for peacetime that are commensurate in bigness and importance to those aroused for the war period.

For higher goals tomorrow is an attempt to associate the noble feeling of service to mankind through a high career with a program of sport to develop the needed stamina of muscle and nerve.

The stories of these posters as of all others could be told in words as well as in pictures. The addition of color to pictures and words often increases their effectiveness. The examples here reproduced are at best mere suggestions of what could be done if we mobilized the best brain power, artistry, dramatic force, and devotion to create yet. andreamed-of ways of arousing the strongest and noblest feelings of man in the cause of increasing the quantity and quality of human life. Such workers would find in this task the highest joy and satisfaction, that of serving mankind.

RENOVATING ATTITUDES

Wrong attitudes must not be ignored. Once they are clearly defined they can be more easily attacked. It is apparent that everyone able to read has already lived long enough to have formed many right and wrong attitudes in relation to health. Some of these attitudes seem almost to be inherited, they are so common to man. Such ones need special attention. The pictures in this section illustrate efforts directed toward correcting three specific attitudes.

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The dental poster is one of the U. S. Public Health Service's popular "Big Joe" series that has done much to annihilate the strong man attitude that "it is sissy to take care of oneself."

As the Afternoon is Lent is an effort to correct the notion that busy people, even hard workers, need no exercise. It connects the joy of a happy family evening with an exercise

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